R. M. Kiser is a storyteller from Kingsport, Tennessee whose fiction finds its way to people who are hurting, questioning, or quietly searching for something true. Writing began as an anniversary gift for his wife of nearly 31 years. After her passing in early 2025, the stories kept coming — and they still do. She is somewhere in all of them, even the ones that do not look like grief.
His work spans mythic fantasy, contemporary fiction, faith-based parables, and a foster-care series that gives voice to those too often unheard. He writes characters shaped by crisis and survival, grounding them in emotional truth without flinching.
A proud father to a son adopted from foster care and a committed community theater volunteer, Kiser lives surrounded by one puppy and three cats. His work does not promise resolution. It promises presence — the quiet, sustaining sense that someone else has seen what you are carrying and did not look away.
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R. M. Kiser is a storyteller from Kingsport, Tennessee whose fiction finds its way to people who are hurting, questioning, or quietly searching for something true. Writing began as an anniversary gift for his wife of nearly 31 years. After her passing in early 2025, the stories kept coming — and they still do. She is somewhere in all of them, even the ones that do not look like grief.
His work spans mythic fantasy, contemporary fiction,...
Set in a 1959 Appalachian valley, Dust and Mercy follows Eli McKinnon, a third-generation farmer whose quiet stewardship of inherited land is threatened when a boundary dispute and the roadside beating of an itinerant laborer force his tight-knit community into a reckoning. The valley's response to both crises exposes the distance between the...
When Caleb Harper finds a box of sealed letters hidden beneath his late wife's side of the bed, he understands two things immediately: Lauren knew she was dying, and she chose to love him forward anyway. The letters are addressed to him and to their son Connor — one for each of the days she knew would be hardest. Reading them means losing her...
In the city of Bridgefall, memory is not metaphor — it is infrastructure. Stormglass embedded in every wall, every street, every foundation records the past with perfect fidelity, curating history for those with the power to shape what is remembered. Five years after the collapse of the Glass Bridge killed hundreds and destroyed her family's...
Every now and then, something happens that stays with me long after the moment has passed.
This particular moment wasn't dramatic. In fact, if you had been there, you probably wouldn't have noticed it at all.
I saw a man sitting by himself.
I don't know why my mind went where it did, but I found myself hoping he was okay. Maybe he was simply enjoying a little peace and quiet. Maybe he was waiting on someone. Maybe he'd just had the best day of his week... or perhaps the worst.
People often imagine that stories begin with a perfect outline or a fully formed idea. For me, it rarely works that way.
Most of the time, a story begins with something small—a conversation I overhear, someone sitting quietly in a park, or a moment that refuses to leave my mind. Those ordinary moments have a way of growing into characters, scenes, and eventually entire novels.
I've decided to begin sharing a series called "Conversations with R. M. Kiser." These...
This site is the new home of R. M. Kiser and Summit & Shore Publishing — a place where you can find my books, my story, and whatever I'm working on next.
I write literary fiction and dark fantasy about people who are hurting, questioning, and quietly searching. Stories that don't look away from the hard things.
Dust and Mercy — my third novel, set in 1959 Appalachian Virginia — releases August 7, 2026. Pre-order is live now.
